Posts Tagged ‘Tysons Corner’

Arthur Murray Fall Showcase

Professional Showcases – DC Area Arthur Murray Fall Showcase

These were some of my favorites from the professional show dances at the end of the 2012 Fall Showcase. The next Showcase event from these studios will be on June 22, 2013. At this time, it will be held at the Hilton McLean in Tysons Corner, VA. For the professional shows, I experimented with using the flashes at the four corners of the room. In short, all are pointed directly onto the dance floor. There would of course be some flare with the flash sometimes being pointed towards the camera. I tried to be patient, and wait for someone to block the lights. Additionally, I sometimes got lucky with the light not firing at the time a shot was taken. Here is an example of the backlight providing a nice rim for the lady.

Ballroom dance photo - www.timelinedc.com

Reston, Virginia

The following photo was probably my favorite for the entire event. These two from the Arthur Murray studio in Chevy Chase, MD. They have danced many of these shows before, and they always play nicely to the audience. The main light is coming from the two lights behind the camera lighting their faces. The two lights facing more directly into the lens provide a nice rim light to separate them from the background. With all these lights facing away from the walls, there is also a nice falloff to the back wall.

Ballroom dance photo - www.timelinedc.com
Ballroom dance photo - www.timelinedc.com

For the last performance, the dancers did a Swing to Psy’s “Gangnam Style” and got the audience to join them on the dance floor at the end! It was an unexpected development – I have never seen the dancers encourage the crowd to join them at the end of their dance. With help from some of the other teachers and brave souls that went out there first, the entire space was filled.  Here the back lights showed through some of the crowd. I think it really helps to convey the excitement and energy of the crowd at the end of a great day of dancing!

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Tysons Corner – personal photo shoot

Tysons Corner photo - TimeLine Media - www.timelinedc.com
Tysons Corner photo - TimeLine Media - www.timelinedc.com

Tysons Corner – Garage C

Finally the clouds have gone away! I was able to go out and get some photos of the some of the development projects being done in the Tysons Corner area. At first is a photo of a cluster of buildings looking south from Garage C of the Tysons Corner Center. I think this would make a great background for portraits and would love to try sometime! Similarly to shooting nature landscapes, early morning or early evening has the best light for these types of photos. There is still blue in the sky, However, the light is coming at an angle. This adds dimension to the photos, as well as creates reflected lights in the windows. Once the sun moves high into the sky, you lose this as all the windows turn black. Also the harsh shadows turns your creative landscape photo into an ordinary snapshot.

Tysons Corner – Garage E

The recently completed HOT lanes from 495 have opened, and the Metro train lines are moving along quickly. From the Tysons Corner mall garages, you can get a good view of the Metro construction along with the new Tysons Tower. According to their website the new tower will rise high above the area providing panoramic views to DC. Many DC landmarks can already be seen from the parking garage where I took this photo. The ISO was set at 50, and the aperture was set at f/11. I used this for the best quality raw file to work with, and to keep allow for a higher shutter speed. The exposure time for this photo was 4 seconds which gives a nice blur to the moving cranes in the scene, and the workers moving around on the ground.

Here the sun was still not over the horizon, so there is some nice color in the sky. To balance the light in the scene, I processed the photo in Adobe Lightroom, and adjusted the mid tones to bring out some of the darker parts of the construction area to bring out more of the details in the photo. It will be nice to come back to this spot to see how the building progresses.  Thanks to the Tysons Corner for suggesting some ideas for shooting spots!

Tysons Corner photo - TimeLine Media - www.timelinedc.com

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Arthur Murray photos

Tysons, Virginia

More photos from the DC Area Arthur Murray Spring Freestyles. This was the first of their 4 local events that we covered last year. It was held at the Sheraton Premiere in Tysons Corner, VA. This is a site of many of their events, and overall a great ballroom for photography. Additionally with the available balcony, we have a lot of flexibility in setting up our lights. On balance it is always nice to work at a familiar venue!

Elias from the Columbia, MD studio dancing with a student in Tysons, VA ©TimeLine Media
Elias from the Columbia, MD studio dancing with a student in Tysons, VA ©TimeLine Media

Arthur Murray Event

Carolina dancing with a student in Tysons, VA ©TimeLine Media
Carolina dancing with a student in Tysons, VA ©TimeLine Media

As can be seen this room offers a lot of options from photography. With this intention, you need to have different approaches to photos. Especially since you will be there for many hours of a weekend. In order to get a variety of images to keep fresh, it is useful to change your body position, and your angle to the dancers out there. You can go from a low angle, a higher angle, to change the backgrounds in the photos. With the length of the room, it still allows you to blur the backgrounds.

Silver Spring, Maryland studio dancing at an Arthur Murray event ©TimeLine Media
Silver Spring, Maryland studio dancing at an Arthur Murray event ©TimeLine Media
Arthur Murray Potomac Cup - trophy for the Team Match competition ©TimeLine Media
Potomac Cup – trophy for the Team Match competition at Spring Freestyles ©TimeLine Media

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